Page 18 of Long Gone

“So the first investor was in for hundred thousand, and the second was in for two?”

“Yep.”

“Where on the timeline did Burton go back and ask for more money?” I asked.

He smiled. “I’ll get to that soon.”

I nodded. It made sense to keep things chronological. “What did the investors buy into and what did they expect to get out of it?”

“Their initial investments were for financing the infrastructure of the neighborhood, and the extra money was supposed to help him come up with plans for moving the clubhouse and pool. When Burton added Phase Two, they had to purchase more land. Which took more money.”

“Why buy more land and add to his financial burden? Why not just deal with what he had?”

“The plan was that the investors would get a percentage of the lot sales, based on how much they’d put in. When Burton bought the first parcels of land, he purchased them at two thousand dollars an acre. He was planning to sell one- to five-acre lots, starting at fifty thousand an acre.”

“Buyers were willing to pay that much for a lot?” I asked in disbelief. “Two hundred and fifty thousand?”

Detective Jones grinned. “I never said he sold any lots.”

“Wait. He never sold any lots?”

“Nope, he was still in the development stage when he disappeared. Five years after he’d started. Which was why he was also working on the land for the Japanese car part facility to the east. He was hoping to make a significant profit he could then roll into Sunny Point, which included both Phase One and Two; however, he simply called it Sunny Point. He was smart enough to get all new investors for the land for the Japanese auto manufacturer. None of the Japanese auto land investors were part of Sunny Point.”

“What was the hold-up on Sunny Point? You said he had multiple investors, so obviously he managed to pull in more money.”

“He seemed to run into trouble at every turn. Just one bad luck situation after the other. It was like the poor guy was cursed. And it wasn’t like he was new at this. He’d successfully developed another neighborhood to the north of Wolford, as well as several other business sites. But Sunny Point seemed to do him in. He had to clear the land and bring in electricity, internet cable, and water. Roads and drainage. But he seemed to hit a roadblock with everything and was paying out money hand over fist until he ran out. By then existing investors were getting pissed, especially the two original investors. They’d been told it would only take two years max before they’d see a return on their investment.”

“Couldn’t Burton have gotten loans?”

“His credit was maxed out. When he disappeared, he was behind on the payments for the loans on the land and was facing foreclosure.”

“So where did the money come from that he transferred into the offshore account?”

“Remember when I said Burton had asked the original investors for more money a third time? He hit up all of his investors with a request for more money a few weeks before he disappeared. Unbelievably, five of the six gave him money. The total nearly came to two hundred thousand. We think he realized he was never going to get out of his mess and decided to cut his losses. So he took the money and ran.”

“And left his wife and kids behind? For only two hundred thousand?”

“Hey,” he said with a lackadaisical shrug. “Two hundred grand isn’t exactly chump change.”

“I’ve been to his house. Two hundred grand wouldn’t support the lifestyle he’s accustomed to.”

“Maybe not, but I’m sure it’s better than prison.”

“True,” I agreed. “But I doubt he would have been put away for long. It sounds like he wasn’t intentionally defrauding his investors.”

“He wasn’t until he fled, although the state was looking into pressing charges. A few of his investors had approached the state together after his third request for more money, but they both assured me they hadn’t told Burton. So I doubt that he knew. The investigator had barely gotten started.”

“If they had contracts with him, then I doubt they had grounds for fraud charges before his disappearance. Any lawyer worth their salt would have built in a risk clause.”

“True, but they definitely had grounds after he transferred the funds to another account without their consent and fled.”

“So the evidence points to Hugo taking the money and running.” But I wasn’t buying it. Not when I knew Jones had cut corners with his investigations.

“That’s the way we saw it,” he said, then shifted in his seat. “Besides, in regard to your question about his family, he and his wife were having marital issues.”

“Oh really?” I asked, though I wasn’t necessarily surprised. Clarice Burton wouldn’t have been the first spouse to hide issues in a missing person case. “When I met Clarice a few hours ago, she never hinted at that, of course.”

“She wasn’t exactly forthright with me either. Mrs. Burton didn’t have a job outside the home and her husband gave her a monthly allowance. When I spoke to her, she painted their marriage as pretty damn perfect, but her friends and family didn’t see it that way. They said Burton had started giving her less money, and Clarice wasn’t happy about it. At all.”

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